A really fine article. I'm optimistic about the future of children. As the authors acknowledge, education and health care, especially in the developing world, has greatly improved longevity and in many cases, created a better life.

There are elements in the environmental movement who would like to close down aid agencies in Africa and Asia as they say they contribute to population growth which in turn means higher consumption and greater green house gases. These are naive instrumentalist arguments but they do have popular appeal in middle Australia.

The eradication of child labour must be a high priority but it's also confounded by wicked problems. Yet for ever condundrum, there is a solution.

All that you do say Suzanne and Carolyn is good, but incredibly you choose to overlook the greatest harm done to children.

It is estimated that 90 – 100 000 children are deliberately killed by abortion each year in Australia. By not mentioning this are you inferring that abortion is somehow good for children?

Further, are you suggesting that abortion does not go against the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child?

What do you make of the parts of the Convention cited below?

Preamble
The States Parties to the present Convention,

Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Bearing in mind that, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth",

Article 6
1. States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life

Come on JP. You are drawing a long bow there, accusing the authors of being soft on abortion.

It needs to be recognised that better sex education and removal of the head in the sand attitude of the Catholic Church would result in less unplanned pregnancies with the consequence of a much smaller number of unloved children being bor or aborted.

It is easy for all the members of the United Nations to sign a treaty and then go back home and ignore it. It just shows what a farce the UN really is.

Cheryl on the other hand would like to see an increase in the number of children in African countries with the consequence of more children living in intolerable conditions. Oh dear, Oh dear.

David

David
I don't see how you can say JP is drawing a long bow to accuse the authors of being soft on abortion, if it is correct, as it seems to be, that the Convention on the Rights of the Child, defines a 'child' to include an unborn child. If the figure of 90,000 to 100,000 abortions a year is correct for Australia, what must it be for the whole world? If that total number of children were dying each year of child sex abuse you can be quite sure the authors would have mentioned it.

Instead of conjecture, perhaps we should ask the authors to come clean on the subject.

David

Peter - itis estimated that about 40 - 50 million babies are killed by abortion world-wide annually. Somehow this manages to be overlooked when expressing concerm about harm done to children.

JP<"...- itis estimated that about 40 - 50 million babies are killed by abortion world-wide annually. Somehow this manages to be overlooked when expressing concerm about harm done to children."

Gee, that sure is a large figure JP.
Imagine if all those unwanted babies had been born? Our world would have been in an even worse situation- with millions more mouths to feed.

What I don't understand is why all you God-fearing anti-choice people don't set your high moral sights on caring for and doing something about the many poor living children of the world?

We have more than enough starving, unloved children in this world that we can't help now, without adding many millions more.

Gone are the days when the good little women just submitted dutifully to their husbands attentions and churned out a baby a year until they were too old to have any more. Thank God.

While I admire the intention of the article, I can't help feeling a little disappointed by it. It is a little vague in some areas, and perhaps (at least to me) fails to convey any real message.

One thing I found interesting was the statement that 'restrictions on Indigenous and homeless young people using public spaces are breaches of children’s rights'. By this, I assume the authors mean that by not allowing people to sleep in parks, in doorways, in alleys and in the street, we are breaching their rights. After all - indigenous and homeless young people are entitled to do everything white, wealthy old people are entitled to do in public.

I would say that these people's rights aren't being breached by restrictions on where people can sleep, shoot up, drink and sniff solvents. It would be more accurate - and more in line with the intended message of the article (I think) - to say that, despite acknowledging the rights of children, we haven't necessarily improved their quality of life. It's all well and good to say that they can eat, play, learn and receive disaster relief. It's another to put structures in place to ensure that they CAN do all of these things. It is the fact that kids find themselves sleeping in parks, rather than the fact that they are moved on by the police when they do this, that suggests that their rights have been derailed somewhere along the line.

What about the right of a child to BOTH it' natural parents"

As listed in your UN convention of the rights of the child...

"States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations"

"States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, "

"A child whose parents reside in different States shall have the right to maintain on a regular basis, save in exceptional circumstances personal relations and direct contacts with both parents"

Sounds to me that the rights of the child are nearly always destroyed by the Divorce COurt's belief in sole custody...

Kids need BOTH parents...

From the comments on this article, if nothing else, it's plain that children are seen as little more than whipping boys for everyone's favourite topic, be it abortion, population or those wicked single mothers.

David, I had a good chortle at you (correctly) accusing JP of drawing a long bow by linking the article to a pro-abortion stance, then turning around and accusing Cheryl of advocating overpopulation when she said no such thing either.

JP - where do you get your estimates for the number of 'abortions' performed each year in Australia? As far as I could tell from the available data there may be 50,000 - 60,000 performed each year as "therapeutic terminations" and a good many of these would be for genuine cases of maternal health factors or fetal abnormality.

As for the 'abortions on demand' in cases of unwanted pregnancy - well so be it. There are enough little unfortunates out there whose mothers would have done a better thing by terminating the pregnancy. The world needs less, not more, unwanted children.

The problem I have with most of the anti-abortion zealots is they are so concerned with 'fetal rights' but once the baby is on the ground and undeniably a living breathing child they tend to forget about the next 15 - 20 years worth of work and investment that needs to go into rearing, educating and preparing that person for independent living.

Are you any different JP? If yes - how